Singh, Amit;
(2025)
University and the Pursuit of a 'Career' for Working-Class Youth in Deindustrial Rochdale.
Sociology
, 59
(3)
pp. 424-441.
10.1177/00380385241289297.
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Abstract
This article examines the way in which working-class young people in Rochdale, a former industrial town in the north-west of England, imagine their future transitions from college to work through qualitative research at Rochdale’s only A-Level college. It explores how students’ aspirations to attend university reflect their desire for a ‘career’ in the absence of alternative forms of work and as a symbolic marker of upward social mobility that is subsequently differentiated from other forms of work as a form of distinction, as a great deal of emphasis is placed on the moral and cultural worth of a ‘career’. In doing so, this article highlights how such perceptions are shaped by the material conditions faced by these young people, such as inequality, financial precarity, and relative poverty against the backdrop of deindustrialisation.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | University and the Pursuit of a 'Career' for Working-Class Youth in Deindustrial Rochdale |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/00380385241289297 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385241289297 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | career, class, gender, neoliberalism, place, work |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212942 |
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